Four Pines Hostel 1488.6 to VA 620, Trout Creek 1496.4 (7.8 miles, 1496.4 total miles)
There was some snoring in the bunkhouse this time, but music saved the day, and although I wasn’t very tired when I laid down, I ended up sleeping very well again in the hostel.
In the morning, Ashley made incredible breakfast tacos with sweet potatoes, bacon, fresh chicken eggs from the hostel, cheese, and fried tortillas. I ate two, very happy to have the hiking fuel for the day.
We were going to slackpack 16 miles today originally, but all decided we wanted to be fully in the woods again, so packed our bags like normal and prepared to hike out.
It was bittersweet leaving Four Pines, as it was one of my favorite places on trail due to all the good times I’d had there over the years. We walked down the drive, weighed down by multiple days of food, but bellies and hearts full, excited to hike Dragon’s Tooth, the last of the Virginia Triple Crown.
It was beautiful out, a perfect fall day, and we reached the trailhead around 10:45, making our way up the incline together. We stopped after half a mile or so, as Sydney’s Achilles was bothering her.
I gave her a piece of KT tape, which Iroh applied from the ball of Sydney’s foot up her calf. They also put wax on Quasar’s paws before we continued up the incline.
The climb was mostly mellow, except a couple very steep sections, and a good amount of rock climbing toward the end. There were even a couple pieces of rebar going up a rock face, which I hadn’t seen in quite a while.
We all alternated the order we were hiking in, and I jumped up a bit for a while. Quasar wanted to hike right at my heels, like Moose, and I waited for Iroh and Sydney for a few minutes at a trail junction before we all continued together.
Sydney was going first until we got to a rock face that required climbing up, so I took the lead on that while Iroh made sure Q made it up safely.
Quasar didn’t seem to be having any trouble with the climbs, however. He was jumping nimbly up the rocks, and liked to hike near the front of the group, often looking back to make sure we were all still there.
We found Dragon’s Tooth .1 off the trail on a blue blaze, a huge stone formation jutting out of the ground toward the sky, ending in a sharp point that towered above us.
This was the one Triple Crown spot I’d gotten a view on in 2015, so I was very excited to see it again, and for Sydney and Iroh to experience it for their first time.
They secured Q at the bottom of the rock, and we scrambled up to the top, quite high up and exposed to the strong breeze, but it was the vast view laid out below us that took our breath away.
Various ridges and valleys spread out before us, pastures, farmlands, and mountains upon mountains of deep green trees and lush earth for our viewing pleasure.
We’d gotten lucky to get there on a Monday, so we had the place to ourselves, and we sat up top for quite a while taking it all in, pointing out Four Pines below, vultures that circled over the trees, and a swallowtail butterfly that danced in the wind around us.
When we were ready, I followed Sydney and Iroh down the rock, crab walking the beginning, then needing to stick out a foot to connect two rock walls, and using my arms to lower myself down to the ground.
I thought it was interesting that on my first hike I’d hiked essentially solo, among other hikers, from Partnership Shelter to Four Pines, where my hike had changed phases after I met Pockets.
This time I was changing phases again after Four Pines, with a new trail family that I was very happy to be with. Hiking with Sydney and Q was really special to me, and I was enjoying it thoroughly.
It meant changes for all of us, however, and I watched the clock as we ate lunch, seeing 2PM approaching, only 2.25 miles into the day. The 14.5 to our original destination could easily be done in 5-6 hours by Iroh and I, but I was counting on us ending early as the day went on.
A middle aged woman arrived while we were eating, and we recognized her as someone we’d passed on the hike up. She was very sweet, asking if we would take her photo with her Go Pro from the top of the rock.
After she yelled down, I took a couple photos of her from below, triumphant in her accomplishment. It took her a while to get down, so I checked on her after a bit and made sure she got to the ground safely.
As we were packing up after lunch, she told us it was her very first day on trail, and she’d already gotten the name Smiles. She was giddy like a teenager, finally section hiking on the trail she’d been thinking about for 20 years.
Smiles and Sydney talked about their experience of just starting out on the AT, but both wanting to hike a full thru one day. I showed Smiles how to use Far Out, so she could navigate the rest of the VA Triple Crown.
I talked with Syd for a while as we hike down from the ridge, which appeared to be covered in downed trees and branches from the recent winds. She had recently applied for a job as an art professor, so we talked about that for a bit, and my prior experience in the automotive business.
I jumped ahead for a bit with Q, making sure we didn’t get too far past the others, listening to a podcast in one ear. I stopped at the top of a little hill to let a hiker pass, then Q and I backtracked a bit because I saw Iroh and Sydney had stopped to chat with him.
His name was Stone Age, and he was flip flopping the Appalachian Trail as well. Similar to Burning Man, he was hiking in three separate sections. Stone Age would be reaching Daleville soon, and stopping there to work for a bit before jumping down 180 miles to hike south to Georgia and finish his thru.
He asked about Four Pines, and we urged him to go, and all talked about our experiences up north, where he’d previously met Iroh. After several minutes, Sydney and I were itching to hike, so we continued on with Q after saying goodbye.
We still had 3 downhill miles to our first water source on trail, and we were all almost out of water. I put on my audiobook as I went along a little ahead with Q again, and saw Iroh had almost caught up to me, so I slowed to hike with him for a few minutes.
We had a good chat before reaching a shelter spur trail where we waited for Syd to make sure she knew we were stopping there, as it was .3 off trail.
Once we were all together, I continued on just ahead until I saw the road, and waited for Iroh to make sure Quasar didn’t go into the road. We got to the creek just before the road around 4:20, and sat on a couple logs there, while Q swam around for a few minutes.
Sydney arrived, and we discussed what options were ahead. We didn’t want to camp without water while having a dog present, so our next option was to hike 6.5 miles up and over a ridge, which Iroh was feeling too tired to do at the moment.
We decided to camp there instead, and after that discussion Sydney disappeared into the woods for a while before coming back out, tears in her eyes. She told us she was feeling guilty about impeding our hike, and wanted to leave.
Iroh and her talked it out, while I tried to be as supportive as I could. He assured her he wanted nothing more than for her to be here too, which I knew to be very true, and that going SOBO means there are no deadlines of when we have to finish by.
He also made it clear that I knew I could hike ahead, and that I’d made the choice to hike with them both because that is what I wanted to do, and was accepting the change in pace that came with that.
She seemed to feel better after we talked, and we all recognized she had put her body through a lot suddenly in a short span of time. She’d hiked every day for at least a week with no zero days, had been feeling feverish from poor sleep, and had new aches and pains that accompany first time backpacking.
I sympathized deeply with her feelings, as being a flip flopper I knew better than most how it felt to jump into a hike everyone else is halfway through already, and know no matter what you do, you’ll never be on the same level.
I also knew it was important to pace herself at first to avoid overuse injuries and burning out, two things that had very nearly happened to me when I tried to keep up with the Cult for too long.
If we took care to make sure Sydney ramped up her hiking in a healthy way, and especially didn’t beat herself up about what she could do, she would get a lot stronger than trying to do too much too fast.
We began setting up camp in a large tent site across the gravel road from the creek, and I found myself excited to sleep in my tent again for the first time in a couple weeks.
Sydney set up her hammock, while Iroh was planning on cowboy camping with Quasar nearby. While I cooked my dinner, they gathered more water, then Sydney decided to build a fire in the pit nearby, her and Iroh putting it together.
Sitting with them, I felt very lucky to have three fires in three days, and it was a nice feeling to be done hiking before 5PM, a rare treat in the days where the sun set so early now.
We were pleasantly surprised when Slice showed up to join us, having taken a zero in Daleville the last day we’d seen her. Slice’s knee had been bothering her, so she’d cut her day short at 18 miles, after hitting McAfee sunrise this morning.
It was really enjoyable talking to her around the fire while she had her dinner, and we were able to have an in depth conversation about being a flip flopper, and how our experiences had gone coming down south and how different and hard it had been at first.
After the sun set, we were all ready to lay down and enjoy the evening, everyone seeming to need some rest. I was feeling good and strong, but glad I could be there to support Sydney today.
I take a lot of interest in hikers who are newer to backpacking. I especially enjoyed helping the few section hikers I’d met on this half shake down their packs and teaching them what I’d learned about the trail during my two hikes.
So I was really happy to be able to help Sydney any way I could, and enjoyed seeing her enthusiasm and joy for the hike so far. Even helping Smiles today had, well, put a smile on my face.
It is hard, though, and Syd’s emotions today were completely normal for any hiker, and I was glad we’d been able to help her understand that she isn’t holding us back, but is adding to our experience.
Thru hikers can have an almost endless amount of motivations and priorities when they are working on a thru hike. Some are all in it for the miles and completing the journey as quick as possible due to a deadline.
Others are here for a more leisurely experience, and want the complete immersion of fully living their lives out on the trail, more interested in the lifestyle than anything.
Of course, there is everything in between. I learned a lot from Jedi while I was hiking with the Cult. The thing that struck me the most was how hiking SOBO on the CDT and hiking in almost complete isolation had affected him.
Jedi was the one who taught me that photos of the people on trail are more memorable than photos of the views, and most hikers forget to take them.
He also showed me that sometimes it makes sense to hike slower than you might be able to in order to enjoy the company that you want to be around.
Jedi finished his triple crown this year after three consecutive years of hiking (plus more before that), and had calves of steel. He could have easily left the majority of hikers in the dust, but prioritized the trail family he’d found out here.
After having hiked with many people and families this hike so far, and also having many times I was totally alone, I know how important it is to me to be in good company, just as I saw in Jedi.
I’ve been through a lot of trauma in my past due to my own nature in relating to people, and this journey has been immensely healing for me in the ways I’ve been able to get close to others again.
I’m not about to let that slip through my hands due to ego. I think about how I took off on Turtle at the very beginning of my hike to do miles I shouldn’t have been doing right off the bat. If I knew I’d still meet the same people later on, part of me thinks it would have been nice to have hiked with her longer.
I used to take pride early on in my hike, and in my life, of being some elusive, passive participant in my interactions with the people around me. I modeled myself after someone I knew well, who always acted aloof and left people wanting more, and I wanted to be that person. Sought after, highly regarded.
Yet my life became much worse the more I tried to be like him, then I found out how lonely that existence could be. I brought those habits out with me on this trail, hesitant to join the Cult because I thought if I joined right away they’d think it was too easy, and not want me anymore.
I’ve relearned over these months, and all these miles, what the trail community means to me. How beautiful vulnerability can be. How people tend to respond to authenticity with love, and how healing closeness is for me.
Unfortunately, the Cult couldn’t wait for me because of their deadlines, and that’s okay. We all still have nothing but love for each other. But I have been lucky enough to be in a position to wait for the others on this trail I care about.
I waited for Sunshine because I loved hiking with her and wanted to be there for her. The 400 miles we hiked together mean so much to me, because I felt like we helped each get to Katahdin, and seeing her summit made me heart happier than I could say.
I hiked slower up Katahdin than I could have, because I wanted to be there with her and the rest of our Maine trail family, and with Ashley and Jordan, wanting them to get the experience of summiting that mountain.
I waited for Iroh when his dad came to hike with him and couldn’t keep up with the miles we’d had planned. I’d waited for him, Sydney, and Quasar to catch up so we could all hike together from here because that’s what makes me happy.
This community has embraced me in certain ways I’ve never experienced anywhere else, because of how specific the people who come out here are, and because of how the trails seem to literally run in our veins for some of us, united by a common bond that seems to make no sense, but all the sense in the world at the same time.
Some things can’t be rushed, and some things will always be worth waiting for.